[Terrapreta] Terra Preta - not just about charcoal in soil

[Michael Bailes]

Sean said

> In addition to carbons the soil also needs soil amendments such as
> limestone and gypsum.


Sean this probably depends on your rainfall and soil pH. i think the
Amazonians used shells. The zeolite i am using as asubstitute for pottery
shards also raises soil pH a little



Elliot
> said
>
> While I am no expert agronomist it appears that N can be adversely
> locked up by bacterial action due to char addition. An interesting
> paper on the subject is:
>
>
> Part of the story seemingly missed so far on this thread, and a key
> point in that paper to me was that it seemed to me that the level of
> plant interactivity with soil microbes is key to unlocking the
> resources they have. Clearly one plant was more symbiotic with the N
> fixing bacteria and benefited while the other could not access the N
> soil reserve and was penalised by increase in activity of the N fixing
> soil bacteria.


Very interesting. we really know so little about the interactions of soil
microflora/fauna  world-wide & in various climates and soils.
Has there been any progress from Cornell on identifying the suite of
microorganisms in Amazonian TP?

I have also seen a paper that suggests adding doses of chemical fertilizers
to the soil kills a lot of nitrogen fixing bacteria.
So you loose N by adding N !
Fertiliser manufacturing sounds like agreat busniess to be in:)

It seems the Amazonians may have been the first Organic farmers.
it certainly seems to me that Terra preta gardening and faming fits better
with organic and bi-organic approaches


> > Does charcoal applied to soil cause N to dissipate to the air or cause a
> > reoccurring loss?  In my opinion no--just a short-time (1-2 years)
> imbalance
> > in the C to N ratio


What sort of nitrogen was it? higly refined Ureas etc may kill bacterial
essential for providing N



-- 
Michael the Archangel :)

"You can fix all the world's problems in a garden. . . .
Most people don't know that"
FROM
http://www.blog.thesietch.org/wp-content/permaculture.swf
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